NATIONAL AND RIGHT-WING RADICALISM IN THE NEW … · National and Right-Wing Radicalism in the New Democracies: Hungary Pál Tamás 3 suspended for decades in Hungary. Though some

National and Right-Wing Radicalism in the New Democracies: Hungary Pál Tamás

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NATIONAL AND RIGHT-WING RADICALISM

IN THE NEW DEMOCRACIES:

Hungary

Pál Tamás

Paper for the workshop of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation on

“Right-wing extremism and its impact on young democracies in the CEE-

countries”


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National and Right-Wing Radicalism in the New Democracies: Hungary

Pál Tamás, Prof. Dr., Hungarian Academy of Sciences

1. Radicalism on the Hungarian political right

1.1 Historical Preliminaries

The first forms of today’s political radical right [RR] appeared around 1918-1919, the period

of the disintegration of the Habsburg Empire, the age of revolutions. In fact this RR - entirely

unprepared - finds itself up against the break-up of the historical territory of the country and

with the phenomenon of a wide variety of ethnic groups turning away from the conventional

Hungarian state concept. Then the RR witnesses the complete collapse of the world as had

been known before. Consequently, revision of this situation, which was not acceptable for the

RR even in a longer run, was one of its fundamental ideological components. Right from its

inception the RR knew that any such revision may be possible only in a geopolitical situation

that could only be enforced by an external patron. Therefore RR’s 90 years history - broken

by frequent hiatuses - may be analysed in two phases. The first phase lasted up to 1945 when

RR was seeking for allies or patrons in a variety of different situations, for such a revision.

This external power was ultimately found in the Third Empire. After the fall of the Third

Empire the RR found itself without an ally. Later on the West was anti-communist but the

European state borders set out in 1945 were, as a matter of course, regarded as inviolable and

in this aspect the West did not offer even the slightest hope to the Hungarian RR, which,

consequently, had no new idea at all concerning a possible revision, the only acceptable

solution for the RR in terms of their philosophy of history. Moreover, the Holocaust turned

the ‘Jew question’ - the Hungarian RR’s favourite issue in internal politics between 1919 and

1945 - into a strict taboo. For in this post-1918/1919 mythology the Jews were regarded as

aliens grasping power illegally, crowding Hungarian elites out of their conventional positions

and that was the reason for their failure to protect the country. So these aliens were

responsible for the Disaster. Punishing them was therefore - and for other reasons too - just

and inevitable.

Now this could no longer be talked about openly. Moreover, many the RJ’s elite fled the

country, others were killed in the war and many were sentenced in court. Their activities were


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suspended for decades in Hungary. Though some managed to survive in emigration but there

were no ‘hot enough’ moments in the Cold War when this set of individuals could have

permitted in America to access any advisory position relating to Central Europe. When at the

moment of the political explosion in 1956 all conceivable Hungarian political groups existing

abroad made attempts to appear in Hungary, the Hungarian RJ also made their own attempt,

but without practically any success. Consequently, in terms of its ideology and style of policy

making RJ remained insignificant for a considerable period of time and so it got ‘preserved’.

Radicals perhaps did not give up the primacy of territorial revision but for most people -

where this had also been a dominant motive for quite some time - it came to be replaced from

the 60s as a programme and as an ideological framework, the need for special protection for

Hungarians living outside the borders of the existing Hungary, along with, if possible, a strive

for having their collective rights recognised by the majority societies and perhaps also by the

international community.

Thus therefore the main political themes of the period between the 1920s and the 1940s have

remained dominant elements of the way the Hungarian RJ sees the world. There is no real

innovation to speak of, unless one regards the discovery of the effects of anti-Roma feelings

that are capable of getting masses mobilised, to be such an innovation. But then the Roma

population was much smaller before World War Two than today and demographic

extrapolations were not as fashionable in the Carpathian Basin than they are today [at least as

regards their focus on the Roma population]. Thus, therefore, old ideological packages have

been put together by the RR in new organisational forms ever since they could re-enter the

scene roughly in the mid-nineties.

Some of the most important elements of the above packages:

a. These ideological packages conserve the way how Hungarians felt about the world

in the 1920s and the early 1930s. In this sense, though the Hungarian RR was also a member

of the pro-Hitler coalitions, it is not a simple reflection of those. And the ideologies that could

be viewed as closely related to the more recent anti-immigrant, somewhat isolationist,

European fear for European’s living space, are also incidental elements only. Thus ultimately

it represents a highly peculiar and highly obsolete yet unfading fright originating from the

1920s without the original’s peculiar social carriers. Back in the 1920s state officials and

officers of the army [though of course not only they] were most directly affected by the

collapse of the historical Hungarian state. They were also representatives of the national RR,


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often in contrast to conservative officers and officials often coming from the same milieu.

Now their messages are repeated by today’s RR that is fundamentally different from their

milieu in terms of social origin and labour market opportunities, in an international

environment that is entirely different from theirs.

b. The events of disintegration in 1918-1919 were a fundamental experience also for

numerous other groups of the Hungarian society as well, even if they did not agree with the

Hungarian RR’s interpretation of the events. At the same time, the system that was created in

1919-1920 and that survived practically up to 1945 accepted preponderantly only one of a

multitude of possible interpretations, the one of grievance. ‘A mutilated Hungary is no

country ...’ was what children had to chant over decades every single day at school. Any more

analytical interpretation than that was simply out of the question. This was the only ruling

approach to all matters of relevance. The RR of the day played a major role in stabilisation in

1919-1920 [whose squadrons of officers first had people hanged and organised pogroms], but

those people were practically fully forced out from power partly under international pressure

and partly for considerations of good taste [survivors of the old elites and aristocrats made up

the majority of the new elites as well]. Nonetheless, a kind of a soft borderline between the

conservative right and RR continued to exist in this first generation as well, in a number of

points. Well known politicians and public intellectuals passed through this borderline,

switching between directions upon the changes of eras or major events. A less highly

qualified, more plebeian branch of RR appeared towards the late 1930s and this branch was

rather unwelcome by the conservative elite, mainly for social but not so much for ideological

considerations. However, these different ‘political rights’ were, if not as parallel systems but

rather as a live system of communicating vessels tilted in different directions, interconnected

with one another.

c. A similar system was formed, in essence, again on the Hungarian political right-of-

centre getting itself reorganised in the second half of the 1999s. RR is void of ideological

innovations and the clean slate made in 1945 removed even the previous RR literature from

distribution. Cautious anti-US drives, anti-globalisation or EU scepticism are not among the

Hungarian RR’s dominant ideologies. There are problems even with the still present residues

from the past as Hungarian proponents of RR cannot even rely on them as a system: a sort of

a new system of ideologies is being put together from shreds of memories, alarming rumours

references of the type of ‘I know someone who heard that ...’. The problem is not only that


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numerous groups wished to continue in 197_98ban where they left off in 1994, but they could

not even remember what would have actually happened to them in 1944. But since the system

of communicating vessels is in place, this sewage pouring out of the RR vessels causes a more

serious ideological contamination in the entire system than did RR in the old network of

pipelines back in the thirties. Other analysts, however, hold views starkly opposite to ours

[e.g. SZABO Mark, 2008]. They argue that Csurka learned a lot from Le Pen in crossing

leftist political interests with rightist ideologies and during the past two years some made a

few - unsuccessful - attempts with a movement modelled on Sinn Fein. Moreover, year 2008

saw the starting of the organisation of some sort of ‘parallel Hungary’ cells, which was yet

another failure. What we saw was social demagogy in the Hungarian movements of the

thirties even without Le Pen and no ideological novelties appear in the above - and, by the

way, ultimately failed - organisational models either.

d. As a matter of course, RR has its anti-communist dimension, but, interestingly enough,

it is by far not as dominant as one could assume. Besides, the most marked representatives of

anti-communism back in 1989 were not even the national conservatives but the liberal

dissidents [which is why they lost the first free election]. The first RR formation detaching

itself from the conservatives - István Csurka’s MIÉP - was, perhaps, verbally confrontational,

however, by the time the RR got itself combined in a system again in the nineties, it saw its

main enemies not so much in the pre-1989 system but in the liberal middle class they saw as

the winners of the system change. And since even then they could apply only ready-made

ideological schemas and what they found ready-made with regard to this theme was only anti-

Semitic packages, they simply rehashed those packages. This first generation of RR finally

proved to be a political failure for its ideological package of ‘protecting the Hungarian nation

against Jewish cosmopolites’ - which they considered to be quite topical - made no sense

below the middle classes, in small towns and in villages (which, by the way, were left in a

kind of a political ideological vacuum). With the entry of the scene by a new party called

Jobbik in the mid-2000s RR’s second wave managed to find the Roma issue as the great

social theme of the Hungary of small towns and villages but - though RR’s first generation

was pushed into the background - the themes of the first generation were not abandoned

either.

1.2 The radical right’s system


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Thus by the late 2000s the system of Hungarian RR is comprised of three main elements.

a. The first element is comprised of RR’s political parties. This includes two parties in

actual fact. MIÉP of the 1990s, we referred to as a first generation party [established in 1993],

and the one called Jobbik, established in 2003, now the most important RR formation.

According to type analyses by politologists these should, on the one hand, as parties in

Parliament, be facing a role criticising democratic policy making from the inside as a matter

of course, or a role amplifying radical external critique and rejecting the existing system. And

they should likewise choose from among different ideological packages and then they could

accordingly be divided into different ideological sub-types, such as neo-fascist, clerical,

ultraconservative or neo-populist or some other [RAMET, 1999: NORRIS, 2005 etc].

Hungarian RR parties do not align to these categories ideologically and there are no sign of

their undertaking any ‘internal tidying-up’ that could lead to categorisation. The second

decision has not been taken by either Hungarian party, in line with the above description of

their historical evolution. Certainly neither of them is clerical [apart from certain central-right

trends] but certain elements of the other trends can surely be found in the parties and, in even

more pronounced forms, in the underlying movements. During its single term in Parliament in

the nineties MIÉP generated no major scandals and since then they have found that they will

not make it to Parliament again but as a registered political power they can access certain state

subsidies and - even less frequently - some media attention as well. And they are well content

with it. Apparently, they have no particular intent of matching any external model. The issue

of ‘democratisation’ which is a step they have to take if they are to make it to Parliament

seems to be more difficult to Jobbik. Some analyses [Republikon Intézet, 2009] already

regard Jobbik as a democratic party, now that they have participated successfully in the

European Parliamentary election. In view of the Party’s current state we hold a radically

different view. The Party’s prominent figures regularly make statements to the widest public

that would never be made by a democratic politician [for example VONA ]. If this Party is

elected to Parliament with its existing leaders and ideological clients as it is in year 2009, then

its representatives may end up there through a democratic process but then Parliament will be

proven - to me - to have non-democratic MPs as well.

b. The second element is made up of politicians and politically active groups

positioning themselves in the Parliamentary political system, however, not in any RR party

but in some other political party [today almost exclusively on Fidesz’s right wing]. More


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recent analyses of the Hungarian RR do not even take these groups and leaders into account in

the framework of Hungary’s RR. We will do so here, without asserting that Fidesz is a radical

party. However, we know from a number of surveys that in 2008/2009 about a third of those

sympathising with Fidesz in public opinion polls were also attracted to various RR ideologies

as well. Fidesz, as the only right-of-centre big tent party counted on their votes as well

between 2002 and 2010 [counting on them today as well, of course]. Of course, tying those

voters to the party requires the distribution of radical messages and the involvement of

authentic politicians - primarily for radical voters - and Fidesz is, of course, applying this set

of instruments as well. Of course Fidesz intends to remain a right-of-centre big tent party and

as such it will very probably run against Jobbik and perhaps against MIÉP as well in 2010.

Consequently, a separate contest will take place for radical votes, further inflating the

extremist declarations to be heard.

c. The movements’ element either debating with or supporting the above from time to

time, an element that is rather fragmented in terms of ideology, culturally and the techniques

applied in leadership.

Little is known about personal affiliations, about cooperation among the three RR sectors, the

flows of political resources or about any possible distribution of work. At the same time, the

above three elements compete for subsidies and for various resources and funds. Interviews

and homepages reveal some details about tactical differences or personal conflicts, from time

to time, but we know next to nothing about the ‘reality-value’ of these - however carefully -

gathered morsels of information. No information that can be found in public channels refers to

the nature of cooperation among the organisations concerned.

1.3 The radical right and the mainstreammedia

As in the case of any political extreme, in dealing with RR the media finds itself facing the

basic question of how to report authentically on its activities and broader impacts without

raising more awareness of the movement and thereby giving it yet another chance for

increasing its support. On the whole, the performance of the Hungarian mainstream media in

describing the Hungarian RR is found to have been rather unbalanced. Since year 2006, the

most important new feature in the Hungarian political scene has been the appearance of

political radicalism in the streets. Consequently, since year 2006 the streets of Budapest have


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seen destruction, battle scenes and police interventions, though the excitement triggered by

them has been diminishing. And all of these events took place in a city where even the system

change in 1989 did not take place in the streets. Now how on earth could the media not have

focused not only on the events themselves but also on all of the names involved, names that

could be linked to the new radical groups. Moreover, the autumn of 2006 and the spring of

2007 brought along highly spectacular events with crowds numbering in the thousands or

even more, with barricades on the streets and with police dispersing crowds, though RR’s

presence in the street quickly subsided and their actual support also appears to have dwindled.

Nonetheless, the media, particularly the mainstream television, continued to search for and

quote the leading figures they got to know in 2006-2007. And they came and took these

opportunities for appearance [eventually, abusing those opportunities in some sense]. As a

consequence of all this the media is misleading in some aspects concerning the Hungarian

RR, making its representatives appear stronger and more definitely present than they actually

are. This media attention, which is overly focused on the sensational and, to some extent,

lagging behind the topical, does have an impact on changes in public opinion concerning RR.

The media shows RR as a trend that is stronger, more threatening and more unified than it

actually is [the mainstream media pays hardly any attention to internal debates within the RR

camp].

Jobbik’s action of establishing Magyar Gárda [the Hungarian Guard], a paramilitary

formation, which attracted great international attention too, largely followed from the

programme of deliberate use media publicity. Since then the Gárda has been banned by court

but the leadership of the organisation had split even before the judgement. Clearly there were

not enough people even for staffing its organisation structure.

The project, however, was easy to transmit visually and was a good subject for metaphoric

interpretations. Images and footage of the organisation unbelievably quickly spread across not

only the Hungarian media but they practically occupied the little media space that is devoted

to Hungary in the international media. The project raised fear, it intimidated entire Roma

communities and it suggested the birth of a new SA. Today it seems to have been more like a

media balloon, one which, however, was extremely successful. Indeed, its memory has been

made even more vivid by the fact that it was banned. Groups of various sizes have been

appearing here and there, wearing outfit similar to the Gárda’s uniform, suggesting that the

movement is not dead, indeed, it is greater and stronger, since its members are appearing so

widely even today. The disbanding of the organisation has released Jobbik from the obligation


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to prove that the organisation is backed by large numbers of people. Now it will never be

found out that it had not been backed by crowds even beforehand.

1.4 Non-conventional communication forms

Contents have so far failed to be renewed. At best only the rhetoric of modern populism but

not its ideological forms have appeared to date in right-radicalism in Hungary. However, in

essence to the contrary, the forms conveying these contents have been very fundamentally

renewed. In this regard the Hungarian public thinks primarily of RR’s web projects. From

among the scene’s communication innovations they do not think, in this regard, of Magyar

Gárda marched down streets in uniforms, or of ‘patriot rock music’, despite the fact that these

can also be though primarily of as communication techniques. It is interesting to note that in

Hungary - just like in Germany and elsewhere too - the RR applies these techniques a lot

more effectively than established democratic parties. Indeed, today it is only RR that has its

own polit-rock genre today. The left’s song culture has become extinct and no other such

genre has ever existed anyway. These circumstances are probably also related to the fact that

the supporters of other political forces are a lot less mobilised and such other political forces

refrain from directly resorting to using mass culture. If, however, they decide to utilise such

means, they have in fact the entire modern communication system at their disposal, they are

not ‘forced’ to try and use pre- and post-modern means. The first inventory of RR’s web

forums was put together by ÁGOSTON [1998]. Some of these forums have already been

banned [such as veresbecsulet.uw.hu run by Vér és Becsület Kulturális Egyesület (Blood and

Honour Cultural Association), an organisation banned in 2005, yet constantly renewing ever

since, organising also events discussing Hungarism, the German/Jew relationship and other

issues relating in essence to the 1944-1945 period, using the discourse of the time] along with

others operating in much looser frameworks, functioning less like movements and more like

blogs [hungarizmus.hu; Trianon.hu; kitores.hu, Hungaria Portal, Szittyakürt, Magyar

Önvedelem]. One common element of these is that these forums, groups and networks are

clearly to the right of the registered RR parties and they call on people to participate in actions

often bordering on violence, sometimes going beyond the boundaries of legality. As a matter

of course, Vér és Becsület (Blood and Honour) is a part of the well-known European network,

whose German and British elements were already banned in their home countries in 2000 and

2005, respectively. Kuricinfo [www.kuruc.info] is a homepage of this segment, known

perhaps even outside the relevant subculture. This homepage has functions in the movement


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as well, playing an operational role in organising demonstrations, picketing at houses/homes

of left-of-centre politicians. This homepage has been banned but it was restarted from a server

abroad. Also, there are homepages directly propagating Hungarian national socialism [e.g.

Suttogó (Whisperer); suttogo.nspage.com/index.php] along with ones belonging to the

international network of Holocaust-denying homepages, such as Revizionizmus

[revizionizmus.uw.hu].

Texts displayed and promoted on such homepages along with books advertised include those

written by leaders of the Hungarist movement of 1944-1945, some of them war criminals

sentenced by court [Szálasi Ferenc, Csonka Emil, Kolozsváry-Borcsa Mihály] as well as Jew

blood libel books - by Hungarian authors alongside translations.

Socialist and liberal parties and politicians are clearly and definitely referred to in these texts

as the domestic representatives of a sort of a world Zionist conspiracy, passionately, in a great

variety of styles, using adjectives that are not accepted in the press. Also, these are the sites

where visitors can come to read ‘sozionist’ jokes.

It is difficult to assess how well-known these sites are really are or what impacts they actually

have. Clearly, they cater for the needs of a specific subculture, amplifying primarily their

moods and sentiments. They have no high profile ‘journalists’ of their own, though some of

their bloggers [e.g. Tomcat] have turned into organisers of movements. They may play a

particularly important role in organising the RR’s demonstrations - at least twice a year since

2006 - that have in most cases ended up in riots on Budapest’s avenues and roads. Some of

them are important very likely only for certain smaller groups or they may be means merely

for satisfying the ambitions of one or another individual. Others, such as for instance

kuruc.info, are, of course, referred to by the right-of-centre and the left-of-centre media alike -

positively or negatively as the case may be - and these are in fact known on a national level.

These home pages, as is usually the case with such mini-movement forums, are fiercely

fighting each others and in some cases even the RR parties. It is not possible to find

substantive differences between and among the ideologies, the main ‘enemy images’ and

strategic goals presented on these homepages [if they actually have such at all] from the

outside. However, as regards their views and judgements of concrete home policy events and

political steps/actions or of the expediency of various actions, they are not only of different

positions but they often distance themselves from their rival homepages. Some Hungarian

analysts see these differences as more important, others - mostly those referred to on the

homepages concerned as belonging to the enemy - perceive this whole sphere as a single


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enemy of their own. This medium is actually too esoteric, it is rather extreme in its political

voices and overly permeated by ideologies, to be capable of directly having any serious

impact on sentiments, moods and opinions on a national level. But as the ideologies of the RR

- though in diluted forms - are used in various ways by all right-of-centre political formations,

so do these strange blogs appear to be ideological laboratories for RR’s more formal, more

sober formations, those in contact with high politics as well. The encoding of racism

constitutes perhaps the most marked borderline between the blog sphere and the RR parties.

The blog sphere does not encode its messages, its anti-Semitism often applies expressly 1944

toposes. RR parties on the other hand apply encoding as parties in the Hungarian Parliament

or in the EU Parliament, they make efforts to ensure that they cannot be formally pinpointed

in this aspect.

This ‘sphere’ underlying/accompanying the RR parties developed, in about a decade, a very

extensive subcultural organisational network, closed systems of ideologies, widely spread

systems of symbols and an extensive infrastructure. Its ‘clientele’ is - though in varying forms

and with varying intensity from time to time - a lot wider than this movement subculture.

They reach not only those affiliated to RR parties and their likely voters but in relation to

certain concrete issues and cases as well as patterns of taste, they also reach wider groups of

the ‘right-of-centre’ in its broader sense.

Meanwhile, a very extensive network of ‘national book stores’ has been built up. There is, in

fact, no town in Hungary with a population of some 50-60,000 without a book store that is

even formally recommended by these networks to one another. In Budapest only - according

to our list that is far from complete - these book stores include Szkítia Pest, Szkítia Buda,

Bagoly, Fehér Kı, Gyepő, Masszi és Püski, Emese Álma, Fehérlófia, Magyarok Háza

[AGOSTON, 2008, offers a more comprehensive collection]. As a matter of course, these

book stores carries non-RR materials as well, and we assume that much of their turnover is

made up of products of 'civil publishers' - historical studies, literature qualifying as

‘Hungarian national’, ethnographic albums, folk music CDs etc. - instead of RR publications.

For this reason, these book stores are frequented by a wider public as well [probably they

keep these bookstores in the market]. At the same time, this public gets accustomed to seeing

RR publications in their shop windows as well as to the idea that those publications are also

part of what is considered ‘normal’. And customers will consider these publications as normal

even if they do not consume, indeed, if they probably reject publications of neo-pagan themes


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or those promoting Hungarian-Sumer ethno-relationships or other para-theoretical reflections

(if they are aware of these at all).

At the same time, some cultural toposes have developed which, initially, were limited

specifically to RR subcultures or even to their specifically defined segments. In about a ten

year period, however, they spread widely, reaching, in fact, even some groups of the non-

radical right-of-centre field. The most widely known such symbol is, beyond doubt, the

Árpád-striped - red and white striped - flag. There is no doubt about this flag’s having certain

medieval elements, however, it was turned into a modern political symbol in the 1930s and

1940s by Hungarian fascist - arrow-cross - movement. Accordingly, the use of the flag was

prohibited after 1945. As far as I know, it reappeared in public first in 1992 at a rally, but then

it remained within the confines of a smaller subculture, only to start spreading increasingly

widely from the early 2000s, turning into an accepted - though not majority - symbol at Fidesz

rallies as well, and according to our survey conducted in 2008 some 37 % of the national

sample found ‘nothing in particular to be objected to’ in this flag.

This category also includes the more or less mystic variants of the Sacred Crown doctrine. St.

Stephen’s crown constituted the basis of the medieval Hungarian state philosophy and it was

remodelled by the 19th century’s Hungarian neo-historism again as the new Hungarian

statehood. After 1989 the crown was first reintegrated in the coat of arms of the Hungarian

state, later on it was returned into the Parliament building from the Hungarian National

Museum but it did not really erode the country’s basic republican ideology. The RR

subcultures quote and promote the ‘Sacred Crown doctrines’ in peculiar, mystic variants.

These concepts, however, have not spread particularly widely [though even the centre-right

has, during recent years, been in constantly emphasising its emotional tie to the Crown].

The other earlier used symbol, the Turul (Hungarians mythical eagle), also used to be without

any modern ideological content up to most recent times in fact. This is a symbol of war used

by nomad Turk nations, allegedly used by the nomadic Magyars of the 6th to 8th centuries as

well. At least, this is now this was redefined by the neo-historising movement towards the end

of the 19th century. Turul statutes were erected everywhere across the territory of Hungary

during the festivities in 1896 celebrating the ‘1000 years old Hungary’, as the symbol of the

Hungarian state presence. For more than a decade these mythical eagle statutes carried no

particular political meaning. That is, until these were discovered by the RR and turned them

into its identity symbol. One Turul statute erected in Budapest without a proper permit turned


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into a scandal and opposition that has lasted for years. And in this case those in favour of the

Turul included the centre-right elite as well.

One perhaps less widely spread constituent element of this neo-pagan ideology is the cult of

an alphabet that is ‘independent’ of literacy using the Latin alphabet, the cult of the Székely

runic script. The romantic movement of the 19th century made attempts to uphold this form of

writing, which is clearly of Turkish origin, imported by early medieval nomads, which died

out hundreds of years ago, though not for replacing the Latin alphabet. As an interesting

aside: in 2009 a right-wing MP put forth a proposal [turned down by vote] concerning the

recognition of the runic script as a foreign language that should, accordingly, be permitted to

be taught in school.

Sponsoring and operating a RR underground musical world has a much wider impact than all

the above combined. This is not a new idea at all, the RR is operating such musical publicities

all over Europe. Skinhead underground has been present in Hungary at least since the mid-

90s. Work on the image of today’s most well known bands has been underway since the early

2000s. Year 2006 - as on numerous other stages of the RR movement - was a turning point in

this arena as well. This world even had its own festivals between 2007 and 2009, north of

Budapest along the river Danube [in a valley called Csattogó-völgy between the villages

Verıce and Kismaros]. In addition to concerts visitors are also invited to martial-sports

exercises and demonstrations based on alleged traditions of pre-Christianity nomadic

Magyars. Some of the bands playing here are of nationwide renown [primarily: Kárpátia, but

perhaps also Magozott Cseresznye (Pitted Cherries)]. A number of other bands have also

gained renown: such as Vérszerzıdés, Hunor, Romantikus Erıszak, Tar-Head, Titkos

Ellenállás along with some five others.

The images presented here by means of music are nothing exotic here. What is special about

these bands lies in their lyrics. Some of the bands have even chosen names referring to pagan

Magyars before the adoption of the Christian faith. A considerable part of the lyrics convey

the view of the world as is known from RR homepages. The audience here is, however,

undoubtedly a lot wider. Some of the bands regularly play before Hungarian audiences in

neighbouring countries [most frequently, but not only, in Transylvania]. Indeed, probably

partly in response to their influence, or with their sponsorship, similar bands have been and

are being started in the Hungarian ethnic minority communities beyond Hungary’s borders as


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well [and then in order to prove the expanding influence of the movement, these bands come

and play at the events organised by the RR in Hungary as well].

A special case of this process of building a cultural medium has appeared in literature or in

literature history as well, in relation to the appraisal of the works of Albert Wass [...]. Albert

Wass was an author in Transylvania, he was very prolific, writing, in fact, lighter historical

novels or novels using historical motives. In terms of their quality these texts should be

considered more as ‘para-literature’. In regard to their themes these works are really not

suitable for supporting any political confrontation they are clearly void of any particular

literary value [at the same time there is no case for objecting to their publication, in particular

in a world that accepts the tabloid press and commercial television channels]. The only feature

that sets the author aside is his romantic attachment to neo-fascist Hungarian publications that

had fled abroad. In the last years of the war he actively cooperated with those publications and

at the end of the war he emigrated [some hold that in order to avoid being called to account

for his actions, others are convinced that he fled from trumped-up charges of war crimes],

ending up in Latin-America, and then during the remaining years of his life - until his death in

the 60s - he published his works in Hungarist [that is, Hungarian fascist] publications in

Latin-America and in North-America. Incidentally, Hungarian emigrants had a large number

of publications representing different ideologies as well. In principle therefore, if one was

forced out of the publicity provided by publishers and periodicals under communist control in

Hungary, he had ample opportunities to have his work published. After the liquidation of the

ghetto of Kolozsvár in the summer of 1944, he eventually published a text (Patkányok

honfoglalása, /Rats' invasion/) justifying the drama. We was nothing of the writer of the

quality of Knut Hamsun or Celine - to name but a few European extreme-right collaborators.

At first the RR and then a wide range of right-of-centre literary historians built up a cult

around this uncharacteristic writer of light literature who was not even recognised by the civic

Hungarian literary history, by way of numerous memorial conferences, immense numbers of

copies of his works and by study contests in schools. His cult is particularly strong in

Transylvania in the writer’s closer Heimat. His work has been turned into a part of

compulsory studies there, indeed, he is being referred to as one of the most important

Hungarian writers of the last century. On the right side of the literary public life the RR views

held by Albert Wass are tactfully hushed up: he is simply an unjustly accused great Hungarian

writer.


15

These apparently digressing toposes - from rock bands through the Turul to Albert Wass - are

indicative, in fact, of two phenomena. As a matter of course, those sympathising with these or

those ready to refer to them in public, are not necessarily always the same people. A lady

teacher in rural Hungary may like to read Albert Wass without particularly liking the Árpád-

striped flags. And vice versa, many of the fans of the band Kárpátia have never even heard of

the writer. And of course, not every one of them knows the etymology of the Turul either.

Nonetheless, these causes, issues, persons, and ideological elements are dominant cultural

[inverse] cultural indicators. On the one hand, a person who chooses several of these is likely

to be close to some hard-boiled rightist cultural milieu. But even more importantly, one who

militantly rejects these will define himself as a political opponent of this milieu. So if in

today’s Hungary one explains what he thinks about these cultural toposes and how militantly

he identifies with them or how ardently he rejects them, one will have politically positioned

himself on the map. This RR and the fight against it, is not about economic interests, but

rather and most of all about culture.

Secondly, by maintaining this infrastructure RR proves that it is a real movement - or rather, a

network of various forms of movements. And as such, it is unique in today’s Hungary. No

such ‘movements’ sphere’ has developed around any other political culture. A whole world of

institutions, clubs and movements has developed in a relatively confined area. Small

businesses manufacture their flags, produce their books, maps and disks. There are youth

events where new recruits are addressed. In a sense, they have built up an entire counter-

publicity, in some sense in opposition to the public mass media. And this is a definite

indication of the scene’s strong vitality. And to be able to tackle this, we should first of all

understand its reasons. But that attempt will be the subject of another study.

Finally - thirdly - it is clear that as a consequence of this very cultural determination there is

no clear-cut dividing line between radical and ‘regular’ political right. Of course they hold

different views concerning the forms of political fight, modernisation or other issues, along

with historical questions such as the reversibility of Trianon [that is, a possible theoretical

border revision] or the Holocaust. But in essence the transitions here in regard to cultural

issues or issues that seem to be cultural, are even a lot softer. And it is the very RR’s -

incidentally, not its most radical - groups have proven to be important innovators in none

other but cultural issues for the entirety of the political right. In a somewhat humanised form,

with less radical connotations, their ideas are used by a much wider group. If not in political

terms but culturally in a wider sense, the RR is the ‘vanguard’ of the Hungarian political right

in many aspects [and of course, it is not its vanguard, in many other aspects]. These two


16

political programmes will be substantially inseparable, if only for this reason, regardless of

the vote maximising techniques actually used.

1.5 Violence

The appearance of the RR on the scene and its gaining momentum has always been

accompanied by debates [in plural] concerning the presence of violence. RR’s opponents on

the political left and among minorities saw no clear-cut differences between various forms of

verbal and physical violence. They argue that verbal violence is a call for and an urging of the

use of violence and extreme verbal violence and the upholding or implication of the

potentially concrete possibility physical violence are intermingled anyway. On the other hand,

RR’s various rightist proponents and in cases even certain centrists, have emphasised that RR

are in fact participants of a fantasy game. All they want is to give amplified voice to their

poorly processed grievances. They may unintentionally hurt or scare some but in fact they are

engaged in healing themselves, they are marching towards normality and they are not getting

prepared seriously for the use of violence. Of course, a negligible percentage may slip into

violent scenes but this may happen only to very small groups of the RR. The RR is primarily a

verbal game, the violent ones belong to another category, that of ‘extremists’. In this study we

do not discuss canonic forms of interpretation relating to legal regulation which are aimed in

essence to enshrine the above in the categories of legality. And we do not discuss the

distinction between verbal violence and direct threat of applying violence. For comparison we

will simply make do with emphasising the two elements:

a. Intensive debate has been underway concerning the regulation of verbal violence -

or hate speech - since the beginning of the 2000s when the phenomenon became clearly

observable. The conservative right does not really or does only marginally participate in the

debate. The proponents of a strict restriction of hate speech, including threatened minorities

and social-democratic governments, are disabled by the constitutional confirmation of a free

speech regulation drafted in 1989, which is unusually liberal in a Central-Europe that is

coexisting with the memory of the RR movements and governance of the period between

1938 and 1945. In 1989 the political elites of the day could not even imagine the activation of

political ideas and parlance banned in 1945 from the national political publicity. What they

focused on was primarily to rule out political solutions and system sympathies akin to the

recent political ideologies of state socialism. Interestingly enough, this sterile regulation is


17

still being fiercely defended by determined members of classic liberal groups around the left-

liberal coalitions [in groups whose members are, incidentally, often direct targets of RR’s

racist verbal attacks].

Meanwhile, various forms of physical violence have appeared in the movements around the

RR, along the edges or only among its political followers. The following three basic types of

such violence should be mentioned here:

Ad hoc violence in minority target groups of the hate of the RR movements.

Political violence [setting fire to left-of-centre party offices sporadically, but continuously.

Throwing Molotov cocktails on party officials’ houses, premises of left-of-centre

movements].

Series of organised violent acts against minority milieus.

Since 2006 each of the above three basic types of violence have regularly - though not equally

frequently - occurred in Hungary. At the same time, apart from simply taking notice of forms

a. and b. the Hungarian public - even on the left - fails to see them as interrelated phenomena,

which should deserve particular alertness or attention on the part of the whole of the

Hungarian society. Cases belonging to category a. are, in principle, recorded and summed up

in annual reports by a public office and racially motivated actions [these are practically

exclusively cases of discrimination against the Roma] are taken care of by a network of

lawyers built up and operated with public resources. From the available documentation,

however, such type a. incidents seem to stem from the prejudices that are rather widely

present in society but, in general, few traces of actions organised by the RR and of any

planned political interventions can be found. It is not impossible that in some cases, probably

very rarely, there are ideologically more closely coordinated actions behind spontaneous

actions and discriminatory steps but we know nothing about these. While actions against

members of the Roma community occur frequently and widely, there are only assumptions

concerning their actual scale for the majority of the conflicts are not reported by the victims

and when they are, the police or other authorities rarely record the underlying racist motives.

No incidents of anti-Semitic physical violence in its classical forms have been occurring on

any scale that would be worth talking about, such cases are not more prevalent than anywhere

else in Europe after the holocaust, and the number of such incidents does not in any way seem

to have increased since 2006 [while anti-Semitic hate speed has grown definitely more

frequent]. Incidents of violence against non-European immigrants are extremely rare. For the

time being the number of people belonging to such groups in Hungary may be even below the


18

number registered during the decades before 1989 when the political regime of the day

actively recruited groups of students, persons for extension training and other people as

required for keeping up various international relations. While in post-soviet countries such

immigrants often become targets for the RR’s organised political violence, such incidents are

practically unknown in Hungary, at least in their gross and violent forms.

Incidents of arson of type b. can hardly be regarded as spontaneous. In general, these involve

the use of Molotov-cocktails or other forms of arson. As far as we know, nobody has so far

been killed in such incidents. There has been no news in the Budapest press about loud high

profile trials involving suspects of such acts. Back in around 2006 such cases still engaged the

national political public, but by the autumn of 2009 they have become well-nigh part of

normality. However, if such incidents were not spontaneous, the RR political milieu is likely

to have had something to do with them. Instead of activists of RR political parties, possible

perpetrators should be sought for those sympathising with the movement element of that

milieu but there is precious little information available for the public concerning police

investigations and results of such efforts.

Type c. events have raised wide spread hue and cry, in cases not only in Hungary but also

abroad. The most well known incident of these was a series of six murders, the victims of

which were Roma persons, living in different villages of the country. At the end of August in

2009 the police arrested four men in the town of Debrecen based on preliminary evidence,

accusing them of the murders. For the time being, precious little has been revealed to the

public concerning the accused or their possible affiliations to the RR scene, but they have

been reported to feature Nazi tattoos, one of them had been included in some police

surveillance record and that the persons concerned had been known in their circles for their

RR type comments.

In the course of the investigations relating to the series of murders the police found other

networks as well, independent of the Debrecen ring. In the county of Borsod they found a

veritable arsenal of weapons along with some networks in the town of Veszprém too. As far

as we know to date these seem to be independent conspiracy type organisations in different

areas across Hungary. We know nothing about any formal political ties or other connections

of such conspiracies to the RR scene.


19

We know almost nothing about the level or type of organisation of the RR and the sphere of

violence proven to be tied or not tied to this milieu. The movement elements and the various

organisations of this segment are dealt with by the police and the national security agency,

just like everywhere else in Europe. This topic is part of the annual public national security

reports but only in general terms from which no data of use for the sociologist can be

extracted. Quite understandably, in publishing information concerning such surveillance and

data the authorities must proceed in accordance with the rules applying to reconnaissance and

intelligence activities. However, the sate security authority does not even publish information

that would make it possible to find out more - even if by way of estimates - about the nature,

size and composition of such forms of organisations or groups, the degree to which their

actions are organised and/or planned in advance. At this point we are not demanding resolved

and proven cases, rather, we would like to see information from which it would be possible to

put together some coherent picture concerning this scene for the public as well. This is said

because it is possible to compile some - even if not extremely reliable - organised and

arranged information concerning the party supporters of RR and their views. But conventional

methods and techniques of sociology are not quite sufficient for collecting meaningful

information concerning the world of movements and ad hoc groups. And since the public is

actively concerned with RR, the lack of information that should be supplied by the Ministry

of the Interior and that cannot be supplemented from other sources, understandably adds to

the confusion of the public. Wrong statements, scary rumours and political prejudices are

getting mixed up here. And as long as there are no acceptable or plausible materials

concerning the real composition and degree/form of organisation of this milieu, it will be

likely to be seen by the public as much larger than it actually is [at least this is what we should

assume in view of more general lessons drawn from studies of scary rumours].

2. Conclusion: To what extent is the radical right endangering the new Hungarian

democracy?

Public opinion in Hungary is dominated by two marked views in this aspect.

One describes RR as a world of marginal movements with modest support on the whole, by

reference to the election mathematics and the games displayed by forces in Parliament so far.

These political groups are rather vocal, since radicalism and verbal extremism is such, by its

very nature and as a consequence of its basic mode of operation. And then the majority of


20

voters are centrist anyway. Proponents of extremes distance themselves from the majority so

there is no real need to bother with them. Should the centre pick them out as its enemies,

indeed, should the centre even take actions against them, it would only go to strengthen their

influence and they would only take themselves even more seriously. In a country

characterised by a process of individualisation, hungry for consumption, which has adopted

the EU’s political and public law frameworks alike, the views formulated by extremists

cannot be adopted by the majority at Parliament anyway. Accordingly, the democratic order

set up after 1989 cannot be endangered by these forces even on a longer run. Even those

holding such views partly sympathise with the political right anyway. They, along with

numerous others, who are somehow close to this way of thinking without belonging to the

political right, tend to make references to the more recent events in Hungary and in West

Europe [Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands]. Between 1998 and 2002 MIÉP was a party in

Parliament and then, as well as since then, they had and have representatives - and even

groups - in councils of municipal governments. They have never endangered democracy

anywhere in those municipalities or in those positions. They adapt to the rules of the game

just like the above mentioned neo-radical parties in other European political systems.

Another approach results in a starkly different opinion of the same processes. This type of

perception sees historical parallels: they have a feeling of having returned to the thirties of the

previous century. What we see is the forming of opinions slightly different from each other

here. Some say that they have a feeling that the vocabulary and the toposes used by the

Hungarian RR show the revival of the political culture that dominated Hungary in different

forms during the decades between the two world wars, and that had been illegitimate not only

from 1949 but already from the spring of 1945 in this country. For these people the

undesirable changes began symbolically as early as when the conservative prime minister of

the day decided in the early 1990s on organising the reburial in Hungary of the remains of

Miklós Horthy, the head of the political system in Hungary between 1919 and 1944, who died

in emigration. And thereafter the most important themes of the same era began to gradually

reappear in the public arena today. Others believe to be seeing more the return of ‘Weimar’s

end’ in relation to the 1930s. Finally, some believe to be observing the reappearance of the

plebeian extreme right of the pre-1945 system, in today’s RR. Whichever variant we may

look at, the RR parties, movements and groups are seriously endangering the new democracy,

by reference to historical analogies. Quite often, these fears are not even rationalised, cultural


21

patterns believed to have been long forgotten are beginning to re-emerge suggesting a sort of

a ‘neo-apocalypse’.

We personally do not share these new ‘Weimar’s end visions’ [in the more recent Hungarian

political language, by the way, I heard this ‘Weimar’s end’ metaphor in 1991 when liberals,

hiding behind a civil disobedience action, the so-called cabbies’ strike, wanted to take revenge

in the street on the conservatives who had won the elections]. At the same time, we do not

think it either that the presence of the RR in the political system will always be proportionate

to its weight in Parliament.

Education for democracy, which at this point, would in effect entail an ideological showdown

with historical Hungarian radical right-extreme traditions, is practically entirely missing from

today's Hungarian political system. There are no state programmes for this, the political left is

shy and, moreover, as a consequence of systematic rightist indoctrination it feels to have been

forced out of the national discourse. The popularity of the anti-fascist protest demonstrations

is quickly declining. Apart from Roma people and the descendants of holocaust survivors who

actually feel to be under attack personally, the number of people participating in such actions

has dropped severely by the middle of 2009. In such circumstances the ideologically

mobilised RR becomes a dominant element of the political agenda even for other parties of

the system, practically independently of the level of its momentary support. The RR is where

the questions put up to public debate come from, which of course are rejected by the political

left [by refusing to respond], which are further softened by the large right-of-centre party,

Fidesz, for its own use. This indirect effect is extremely strong and it is not expected to

subside even after the 2010 elections, in a very likely new government-opposition set-up. In

this sense the ideologically determined rightist questions and themes determined by the RR

will - without any external impact - distort even in themselves (alas, they are already

distorting) the spaces of democratic discourse in the Hungarian political system. And

apparently, the Hungarian elites have no concept worth mentioning, for taking on this

phenomenon.

Documents

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